World Youth Day Fall-out
Letters: The Sydney Morning Herald: 17/7/08
George Pell’s admonishment to young pilgrims to struggle against their “fat, relentless egos” would perhaps have made more sense coming from someone without a public relations officer, someone who so obviously enjoys the trappings of office, including an insistence on being called “Your Eminence” (”An appeal on struggle to the lone lost sheep”, July 16). Perhaps a rereading of Matthew 7:3 might be in order (”Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”): Sunil Badami; Rozelle
Bishop Anthony Fisher’s remarks that a few people are “dwelling crankily … on old wounds” illustrates the point that the hierarchy of the Catholic Church has no comprehension of the seriousness of the situation regarding abuse within the church. Ross Pulbrook; Wyong
After Bishop Fisher criticised “a few” recalcitrants for “dwelling crankily .. . on old wounds” he put things into a perverse perspective by telling us how Cardinal Pell has a long history of meeting victims of clerical sexual abuse. How many victims does one need to meet, over what period of time, before it sinks in that this stuff isn’t just trivial and annoying? Allan Lloyd Lamb; Island (Qld)
An appeal on struggle to the lone lost sheep; Linda Morris; 16/7/08; http://www.smh.com.au/news/world-youth-day/an-appeal-on-struggle-to-the-lone-lost-sheep/2008/07/15/1215887631172.html
Inspired by young pilgrims but not ’sea of men’ clergy
The Australian, 18.7.08; The Australian, No Internet Text
I’m a woman of strong faith and a committed Catholic. I’m impressed and inspired by the faith, commitment and energy of the young people attending World Youth Day. However, I’m moved to write about the deep pain I experienced, as always, when confronted with the sea of men, leaders of the Catholic Church, at the WYD mass at Sydney’s Darling Harbour on Tuesday. I wonder when these leaders will be moved to recognise and respect the true dignity and equality of women whom they exclude from participation in leadership and decision-making roles. What a different experience it would have been for the young women (and men) pilgrims to see a leadership truly shared by the Catholic Church’s women and men. Until leaders of all religions offer women the respect of equal status, there will be implicit rationales for unjust treatment of women, including domination, exploitation, abuse and violence. Women will continue to be perceived as “less than”, arid subordinate to, men. In recent community and government soul-searching for Australian values, I have noted that valuing equality of women and men has always featured in people’s lists and I wonder when people in the Australian community will begin to question the granting to churches of exemptions to anti-discrimination law. Marie Joyce Kew; Vic
Confronted by the Foster family’s continuing anguish over the rape of their two daughters by a Catholic priest, and the recent suicide of one of them, Bishop Anthony Fisher’s Christianity extended just far enough to say that they were “dwelling crankily .. . on past wounds” (”Bishop attacked on sex abuse remarks”, 17/7). Kevin Rudd might compare this morally putrescent trivialising of child rape, suicide and grief to a nude picture of a young girl and see which one really deserves the term “absolutely revolting”. Fisher’s statement is one more example among many thousands of the Catholic Church’s consistently despicable attitude to the individuals its representatives have abused and whose lives they have destroyed. Abuse victims aren’t doing any damage to the World Youth Day festivities. The youth are having a fine time, and the festivities are going well. The damage is being done to the Catholic Church by its own representatives. Michael Jameson Cooks Hill; NSW
It may be of small consolation to Anthony and Christine Foster, but I would like them to know that hundreds of thousands of ordinary everyday Catholics grieve with them. It’s a matter of deep shame for all Catholics that their daughters were so cruelly betrayed by a shepherd in wolf’s clothing. Monsignor Robert Egar; Seacombe Gardens, SA
Sex abuse victims ‘denied proper compensation’
Barney Zwartz; 18/7/08
Melbourne’s “unjust” system for dealing with sexual abuse had probably saved the Catholic Archdiocese more than $40 million that should have gone to victims, the father of two schoolgirls who were repeatedly raped by a priest suggested yesterday. Anthony Foster said that only in Melbourne, under the system set up by now Sydney Archbishop George Pell, was compensation capped (at $50,000). There was no cap in the Towards Healing protocol that applied in the rest of the Catholic Church in Australia or in the civil courts. “When we went to court — as invited to by Cardinal Pell — they settled for a much larger sum. It’s all about saving money,” Mr Foster said. He suggested there had been at least 200 compensation cases in Melbourne at an average of $25,000.
See: http://www.theage.com.au/national/sex-abuse-victims-denied-proper-compensation-20080717-3gxo.html
Some Wounds are too painful to heal.
Editorial; 18/7/08, The Australian, No Internet Text
The papal apology is more important than ever. It takes only a smidgin of compassion to appreciate the hurt and pain of Christine and Anthony Foster as they see images of thousands of exuberant young people revelling in the camaraderie of World Youth Day. Had it not been for the depravity of a Melbourne priest, John Kevin O’Donnell, who raped their daughters, Emma and Katherine, at primary school, the girls might have been among the crowds. Tragically, Emma committed suicide earlier this year at 26, after battling depression, anorexia, self-harm and drug abuse for years. Katherine drank heavily before being disabled when hit by a drunken driver in 1999.
O’Donnell died in prison 10 years ago. He was jailed in 1995, aged 78, after pleading guilty to abusing two girls and 10 boys in the parishes of Chelsea, Seymour, Dandenong, Hastings and Oakleigh over three decades.
The fact that O’Donnell was moved around so much, and allowed near children in parish after parish, exemplifies all that was wrong with the church’s furtive cover-ups of abuse in the past. Amid the current fracas, timed by the Fosters and the ABC’s Lateline program to capitalise on the Pope’s presence in Australia, it should be acknowledged that the church has lifted its standards in handling complaints in the past decade.
A year after O’Donnell went to jail, George Pell became archbishop of Melbourne and established an independent investigation commission headed by Peter O’Callaghan QC. The rest of the church adopted the Towards Healing protocol. Dr Pell apologised to the Fosters in 1998 and stands by that apology.
They rejected the $50,000 compensation offered under the Melbourne scheme, as was their right, and pursued the matter through the courts. After eight years, they received a large payout, but they remain unhappy with the church’s attitudes to victims of sexual abuse.
Lateline’s efforts to sheet the blame home to Cardinal Pell are misguided. He took no part in the Fosters’ civil case, and the abuse occurred under his predecessor’s watch.
Amid the euphoria of World Youth Day, it is regrettable that the event’s co-ordinator, Bishop Anthony Fisher, 47, complained insensitively about those “dwelling crankily as a few people are doing on old wounds”. A well-educated lawyer and bioethicist, Bishop Fisher’s episcopal motto is “Living the truth in charity”.
His frustration at an issue from so long ago rearing its head during World Youth Day is understandable. But being known for his concern for the vulnerable, he should understand that some wounds, however old, go on hurting if they involve the loss of a beloved child. That the wounds were inflicted by a priest makes the sting harder.
Bishop Fisher qualified his remarks, affirming the need “to do all we can to prevent this happening again and to bring healing and justice to the victims”. He has done a top job with World Youth Day. But the comment was far from the spirit of the Good Shepherd never giving up on a lost sheep “with hope diminished or even exhausted” evoked by the Cardinal in his sermon at Tuesday’s opening mass.
Cases such as this underline the importance of separating church processes from those of police and the courts.
Both the Melbourne system and Towards Healing strongly urge complainants to refer criminal matters to the police.
Up to a decade ago, the church mistakenly believed it could handle such issues in-house. The adoption of the protocols was an admission this had been wrong. If, as expected, the Pope’s apology to abuse victims is meaningful and heart-felt, it should be accepted. To make amends, the church should commit itself to fund continuing counselling for victims, regardless of whether they accept church compensation or seek redress through the courts.
Parents’ plea for a papal audience
Joel Gibson; 18/7/08
After 33 hours travelling from Scotland via England, Japan and Cairns - and 20 years after the futures of their two daughters had been stolen by a serial rapist in priest’s clothing - Anthony and Christina Foster landed in Sydney yesterday morning. They were here on a mission for their late daughter, Emma.
See: http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/parents-plea-for-a-papal-audience/2008/07/17/1216163059294.html
Reject greed and exploitation: Pope’s plea to pilgrims
Barney Zwartz & Annabel Stafford; 18/7/08
Pope Benedict XVI has marked his triumphal entry to the World Youth Day festival with a “boat-a-cade” on Sydney Harbour and a trademark message of hope and warning against the “poison” that threatened to corrode and distort young lives. Addressing hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who turned out to see him by the harbour at Barangaroo, the 81-year-old pontiff said the world had “grown weary of greed, exploitation and division, of the tedium of false idols and the pain of false promises”, and urged them to seek the true, the good and the beautiful. Delivering his first major speech in Australia, the Pope also lamented the advent of television and computer entertainment exalting violence and sexual degradation.
See: http://www.theage.com.au/national/reject-greed-and-exploitation-popes-plea-to-pilgrims-20080717-3gxg.html
Scarred for life, and a papal apology will not give absolution
18/7/08
I am a 56-year-old male who has endured for more than 40 years the ramifications of being sexually abused as a teenager by a religious brother. Although I could be considered to have been successful in my professional life, what can be seen on the surface belies what has been happening in my mind and heart for all those years.I have finally received treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder caused by my abuse, but the hurt and suffering will never go away.
See: http://www.smh.com.au/letters/index.html
Abolition of church celibacy would help end sex abuse
The Sydney Morning Herald; 18/7/08
The unreal insistence on celibacy for Catholic priests not only makes them prone to sexual deviance but also unable to truly understand the love of a parent for one’s children. Abstract love of the kind created by a couple of millennia of dogma cannot compare to the fundamental love of a parent for their child. Most parents would never get over the sort of losses the Foster family have endured (”A cranky father tells the church: the wounds are still raw”, July 17). Any parent would understand this, and no one who truly expressed the love described by Christ would ever criticise them for it; Mic Gruchy; Darlinghurst
Seehttp://www.smh.com.au/letters/index.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap2
World Youth Day ‘anti-annoyance’ law be damned
Michael Pelly; 18/708; The Australian, No Internet Text
Five days after NSW passed its controversial “anti-annoyance” laws for World Youth Day, Jeff Shaw left a message on the phone of NSW Council of Civil Liberties president Cameron Murphy. The former NSW attorney-general and Supreme Court judge had read about how the provision was proclaimed on June 25 without any parliamentary debate. ‘I am someone who sits down and reads the government gazette on a Friday,” Murphy said this week. “People were ringing me and saying have you seen this. When I spoke to Jeff (on the Tuesday). he said he was appalled.” They met two days later. “He said, ‘Look, I think it’s beyond power’ and we got preliminary legal advice from him.” Murphy said that until then, the council had been focused on basic constitutional issues.
“We were looking more at the implied right of political communication more than the issue that it might be beyond power. Ultimately the court found it was. “I’ve got to say that his view was right and certainly he was the first person to raise it.”
Shaw, now a barrister at a criminal and administrative law practice, was modest about his role but confirmed his view that “there were doubts” about the validity of the regulations given they were so broad. Soon after the meeting, barristers John Griffiths SC and Kate Richardson contacted the council and said they were interested in working on the case.
“They developed a strategy at the same time as we met different groups who were intending to protest,” said Murphy. “We were talking to everyone from victims of child sex abuse to the No-to-Pope Coalition. “From that we found the two applicants (Sydney University students Rachel Evans and Amber Pike) who were prepared to raise it in court.”
The banisters met Evans and Pike, drew up their affidavits and lodged court papers — complete with two condoms — the following Monday. The matter quickly came before Justice Catherine Branson, service was effected and a hearing was set down for the Friday. The Government found itself on the defensive, with Jesuit priest Frank Brennan even quoting a papal encyclical.
“As an Australian Catholic lawyer, I am saddened that the state has seen fit to curtail civil liberties further in this instance than they have for other significant international events hosted in Sydney,” he said.
The legal team ended up running with both the political free speech and beyond power, but it was soon clear that the latter held more appeal for a bench comprised of Branson, Robert French and Margaret Stone.
The NSW Solicitor-General Michael Sexton QC was confronted with a series of left field examples, including this one from French. “How about barracking for the Dockers while you are sitting in the middle of a bunch of Swans supporters? I’ve done that.”
However, one in particular tested his humour. Stone: “The point was clearly we’re talking about conduct but whether conduct causing annoyance it is necessary to regulate or it is within the scheme of the Act to regulate conduct that causes annoyance.” Sexton: “That’s what the Act says. It talks about regulating conduct generally.” Stone: “Yes, but any conduct?” Sexton: “Well, at World Youth Day venues perhaps so.” Stone: “So is tying my shoe laces prohibited, is that OK, that is conduct that I carry out at a World Youth Day event?”
Sexton: “As your Honour says there has to be some nexus with the event with the persons who are attending it and so on. These are rather extreme examples.” Stone: “Of course they are and they are deliberately extreme in order to tease out a point. It is not that any of us are suggesting that these are likely but we are trying to get to a point — we do not seem to be able to get there with less extreme examples and so we are trying another tactic.”
A few minutes, later Stone was even more direct. “It’s difficult to use the term annoying and not have it include something entirely trivial. The fact is it includes both (the serious and the trivial). That is the difficulty,” she said.
By this time the bench’s thought pattern was obvious. “It’s the subjective element that … I find most troubling,” Branson told Mr Sexton. “There’s a risk of public life in Sydney becoming extraordinarily bland over a period of some weeks because of the force of this (legislation),” Branson added.
When French announced at the conclusion of argument that there would be a decision the following Tuesday — the official start of WYD — the prospect of the court playing party-pooper loomed large. Evans was happy to explain to anyone why she was committed to the cause. She was a lesbian who had lost a close friend to AIDS five years ago and had been the victim of some “annoying behaviour” herself from “a member of the Christian right” as she marched at Mardi Gras. “We just surrounded him and started kissing each other,” she said.
At the end of each break in proceedings, they would put on their No-To-Pope coalition T-shirts and prepare to spruik their message about papal teachings to the waiting media. Murphy doesn’t disagree with the view that they represent a dying breed — the student activist. “They accuse the new generation of being passive but there are certainly people out there who are prepared to give it a go.”
The judgment was scheduled for 12 noon but it wasn’t till 12.25 that the judges strode out to a full courtroom, French apologising for a delay he put down to “late hitches”. The first part of his summary held no joy, with the provisions relating to WYD marketing causing the court no difficulty.
But when he paused and delivered a “however” it was clear they were about to cannon the “annoying” part of the regulations. This wasn’t a constitutional issue, said French. It was all about the failure of a legislature to get it right.
The first line of the judgment said it all. “It be hereby declared that Clause 7(l)(b) of the World Youth Day Regulation 2008 is invalid, as beyond the regulation making power conferred by s58 of the World Youth Day Act 2006 (NSW), to the extent that it purports to empower an authorised person to direct a person within a World Youth Day declared area to cease engaging in conduct that causes annoyance to participants in a World Youth Day event.”
The court explained the word “annoying” was “wide enough to encompass any observable act a human being can do”.It added that clear words needed to be used by parliament “before fundamental rights and freedoms are taken away”.”We have interpreted the World Youth Day Act in the presumption that it was not the intention of parliament that regulations would be made under the act preventing or interfering with the exercise of the fundamental freedom of free speech,” the judges said.
Father Brennan delivered his own verdict, saying it was “a most misconceived exercise in at-tempted law-making”. “It simply provided a lightning-rod conductor for those wanting to agitate against World Youth Day,” he said.
Evans again donned the T-shirt and, with her silent partner, headed for the camera. It was a victory for the protest movement, she said, before meeting with a less than enthusiastic response when she offered a condom to a pilgrim.
Murphy isn’t so sure, pointing to the judgment’s contention that if parliament was clear enough in its intention to remove fundamental rights it could — provided it did so in sufficiently clear terms. “There is nothing to stop them passing another annoying law provided they give the courts some guidance about what it actually means.”
Tags: Australia, Christianity, Law & Human Rights, Letters, Sex Trade, WYD